Demon's Virtue

The Naiad Queen slowly floated to the side. She was still shaking after Eiro's brief... display. He was actually quite surprised at how effective it had been. He was just a duplicate and didn't really have full access to a lot of the original's powers, so he didn't think that his momentary 'bluff' was really going to work out.

Though, at the same time, Eiro didn't really know whether or not it was really just a bluff, at the end of the day. For the time being, he would try and avoid getting rid of someone as prominent as the Naiad Queen, as it would certainly create quite a few enemies, and that was not something he was particularly interested in. Not to mention, she was needed for the balance of the world.

And after meeting them, the actual conscience of the world, if that was even the right term to describe them, he would rather not cause them any trouble. They had been nothing but helpful, after all.

"So?" Eiro finally asked, and the massive Naiad looked over at him with fearful eyes. She knew what Eiro was waiting for.

"Nellissa is... no, she was, when I was still much, much younger, my teacher," the queen revealed. Eiro raised his brow surprised. Certainly, Nelly was incredibly skilled. Rather, she was one of the most skilled Naiads that Eiro had ever heard of. How her and Jura ended up together was something he didn't know, but that was her business, anyway.

Jura was connected to a lot of impressive individuals, so Nelly being with him was never something that struck him as 'weird' in any sense.

"...That means she taught you magic control? Or something of that sort?" Eiro wondered, and the queen slowly nodded, "Amongst other things... but yes, that was the main matter that she taught me. I had been one of the prospective queens, and I was lagging behind considerably, so the former queen... erm, the one from the former generation, not the one you know...

anyway, she had sought out a spirit that she heard of. An incredibly old and knowledgable spirit."

Eiro furrowed his brow. He knew that Nelly was quite old, but the way that the Naiad Queen was saying it felt... off. But for now, he didn't want to interrupt her story and further, and just let her continue on.

"Then, some time later, Nellissa arrived, and started to teach me. Frankly, in the beginning, I had thought she was nothing special. I mean, she was skilled, of course she was, but... not to the degree that her abilities would be spoken of from there to hither, just... I underestimated her. Didn't take her seriously whatsoever."

"And that's why you weren't the one that became the Queen?" Eiro asked bluntly, and the spirit in front of him seemed to grow annoyed for just a moment, before once more realizing who it was that floated there before her. So instead of complaining, she just nodded.

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"I figure you could say it like that, yes... By the time I did realize that there was far more to Nellissa than met the eye, it was already too late. Though, to be totally honest, my competition wasn't... someone I could really beat anyway. She was powerful and virtuous, and much more belonging of the title than I ever was, but then some time after she became queen, she gave the title to me instead.

Luckily, in that time, Nellissa had not actually stopped teaching me, so I had become a lot more worthy of that position in that time."

"What was it that finally convinced you? Nelly isn't the sort to care what others think of her, so I can't imagine she purposefully showed you her 'real' power."

The Naiad Queen nodded, looking over toward Nelly, "That moment came when we went out on an excursion. Nellissa had always been of the opinion that any spirit, and especially a Queen, needed to know of the world. I mean, not this realm, but the central material plane... All spirits are born both here and there, forever connected to both realms.

I was born in a pond that was protected in a certain country, sheltered from the influence of the outside world specifically to protect the spirits born there. In exchange, many spirits from there would form contracts with the rulers of that country, a practice that still goes on to this day."

As she looked at Eiro, the queen could tell that he really didn't care about this part of the story, but was just silently listening anyway. Trying to reassure him, so as to not upset him any further, she explained, "This is an important part of it, don't worry... Nellissa told me to go back to that pond for a while. And as I did, Nellissa appeared there as well...

by her side, a young woman acting as her contractor. Now, this woman didn't seem like anything special. Rather, 'woman' would be the wrong word in the first place, she was a... a child. I don't know how old, realizing the age of people in that realm is something I've always struggled with, but she must have been one of the younger ones. Carefree, and just wandering around with Nellissa by her side.

And... this girl was far, far less than mediocre. Mana that was just barely enough to summon a single droplet of water, and the same affinity for water magic that a grain of sand in the deserts may have. More than surprising, it seemed almost impossible for her to be a Naiad's contractor. But that's not where my surprise stopped.

It was when I realized that the girl was holding a certain amulet, which I had recognized from one of the images I saw during one of Nellissa's lessons, that I understood what we were about to do. The girl scooped up some water from the pond into the hollow amulet, and Nellissa prompted me to, just briefly, flow into the water.

And with that, I was temporarily linked with the amulet, and could move freely without the need for a contractor. It was a wonderful piece, certainly. It wouldn't last forever, but it seemed long enough for what Nellissa had planned. We were headed to the first spring."

Finally, Eiro was hearing something that actually surprised him a bit. He hadn't expected to hear that term here. The 'first spring' was of course not the first body of water ever in existence or anything of the sort, obviously, but it was certainly the first place that Naiads had ever been born into.

These days, it was a place that barely any Naiad, not even the King or Queen, really knew the location of. More than anything, it seemed like some sort of rumour or fairytale; it certainly appeared in those sorts of books the most. Once again, Eiro felt a weird connection behind what the Queen was telling him, but he had to just listen for now and make sure that he wasn't wrong.

"The journey itself wasn't anything too arduous," the Queen explained, "I wasn't used to travelling through that world, of course, but Nellissa had shown me a lot of wonderful things during my time there. Different rivers and lakes, waterfalls, and we even got to see the ocean for a brief few moments.

But it was long enough for me to start to realize that the central material plane certainly was more wonderful than I had thought before. And humans too, they seemed... interesting. Shockingly so, really. That girl, Anna was her name, she was joyful and made for an eventful journey to say the least. And then, we finally arrived at the spring.

Anna didn't follow us into the cave; it was too narrow for her to safely travel through. So, we headed inside, and the further we went, the more I felt... invigorated. Not more powerful, of course, just more... awake. More alive.

When we reached the end of the cave, I saw a small underground pond, with numerous gemstones covering every speck of the walls. It was a sight that made me wonder if I accidentally slipped back into this realm while traversing the caves, but Nellissa assured me that it was correct, that it was indeed the first spring I was looking at. The place the first Naiads came from.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but not many spirits really came from there. The first King and Queen, a handful of others, and that was it. After that, the spring never produced more spirits, even after the spirits from there passed on."

The Demon was a bit confused about that last statement. Obviously he knew. It was one of the few facts that seemingly had to be mentioned when speaking of the first spring.

"So? What about it? Are you trying to say that this wasn't true after all? That more spirits were born later, and that Nelly is one of them?" Eiro asked. It was clear that this was the direction it was headed from the tone of the conversation. But he didn't expect what he heard next.

"Nellissa certainly is from that spring, yes. But no, it was true. Only the first dozen or so spirits were born there. And amongst them, a small, weak spirit. A... prototype, as you may call it.

A first attempt at the spell that the world cast to birth us. It... didn't go quite right. It took a little while longer for that spirit to truly come to. To awaken from the primordial state a spirit is in when first born, confined to that cave for far, far too long. Longer than any spirit should be able to live in the first place, this spirit spent as a mere child."

Eiro turned his sight onto Nelly. That was a joke right? Again, he knew that Nelly was old, but she always just acted as a common spirit. Though, Eiro figured that not caring for such matters was something that sounded quite a lot like Nelly. But even so... there was no way what the queen was saying was right.

It just couldn't be.

The first Naiads were born before the age of the gods.

Before the first people ever walked this world.

There was no way that Nelly could have been the very first Naiad.